


I am just drifting (hold out your hand and anchor me home)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [22]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pepper fixes things like normal, Sharing a Bed, shy tony, they're in Italy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: They're in Italy.Tony had made it sound like some sort of paid vacation, where he would fly Pepper to Italy in his private jet and all she would have to do is lay by the pool and answer the occasional phone call, so long as they meet for breakfast each day so she can tell him which meetings he needs to attend and which ones he is allowed to skip.  It was supposed to be relaxing, but they're already ten minutes in and the hotel clerk is telling them that there's no reservation for Tony Stark in the system, which Pepper doesn't really know how to handle.  There were a lot of things she had bee prepared to go wrong, but never before had someplace lost  reservation for a billionaire extraordinaire.





	I am just drifting (hold out your hand and anchor me home)

**Author's Note:**

> they're going to be in Italy for the next three installments, but I also don't know anything about Italy, so let's see how this goes

This was supposed to be relaxing.

When Tony had told her about it, he had made it sound like this was going to be some sort of paid vacation, where he takes her over to Italy in his private jet and all she has to worry about is laying by the pool and answering the occasional phone call, so long as she rattles off what meetings he has to attend each morning when they meet for breakfast.  And Pepper had bought it, thinking that worst case scenario, it wouldn't be any more difficult than her every day life back home.  And this time, it would be in Italy.

She was wrong.

"What do you mean there's no reservation?"   Pepper had come into a lot of problems working for Tony, but this was not one of them.  People don't normally lose the reservations for a billionaire extraordinaire.  "It's Tony Stark."

She's on the verge of leaning over the counter and demanding  _can't you check again,_ but she remembers what it was like to be in the position that the girl was now, and besides, the clerk already looks like she's on the verge of tears.  "I'm sorry."  Her fingers were trembling so bad against the keyboard she could barely type, probably thinking that she was only seconds away from being fired.  "I don't see anything hear under his name."

"Sweetheart.  Can I call you sweetheart?"  Tony lowered his sunglasses and leaned across the counter, voice low, soothing, like he was about to tell her a secret.  "Don't worry about it.  It happens.  Just get me another room, any room at all, and we'll call it a day."

He's already reaching for his credit card, and Pepper once again is baffled by the way that rich people are able to walk through life, the way doors just fall open for them when other people have to spend their whole lives knocking them down.  "That's the problem, sir."  The girl looked apologetic again, and was trying to maintain some control over herself.  She was mostly failing.  "There are no other rooms."

Of there weren't.  Pepper had known that was a possibility for a while now, seeing as how this whole building was being booked by geniuses from all over the world, and also because Victoria Secret was hosting a fashion show here for the weekend.  It's a gathering of the world's smartest and most beautiful people all in one hotel room, and Pepper honestly thinks that it really was just an accident that they were planned for the same place.  

"Well."  Tony was thrown by that, but to his credit, he didn't try to argue, just shoved his wallet back into his pocket and shrugged.  "Shall I find another hotel?"

"What?  No."  Pepper was scrambling to find the best way to solve this, but really, there wasn't any other solution.  If the two of them were not in this hotel together, there would be no way that she would be able to force Tony to go the meetings.  It was one thing to make him attend a conference when it was just an elevator ride away, but it would be another conversation entirely if he had to cross town to get here.  Or even the street.  There are just so many distractions to pull him away.  "We'll stay in that room."

"Together?"

"Yes, together."  Like it was the weirdest thing they had done together.  She could sleep on the floor.  Pepper turns back to the girl, who was holding two room keys and still looking terrified.  "Better make it three."  Pepper sighed, scrubbing at her temples, trying to make the building head ache go away.  "He tends to lose things."

 

 

 

The room is tiny.

Pepper sighs, fishing through her purse and gathering up a handful of bills, which she pressed into the hand of the man who had carried their bags without looking at them before marching over to the window and throwing open the curtains, staring down at the pool below, where Tony currently was, undoubtedly with drink in hand.

 _This was meant for one person,_ She tests out the couch, where she had promised Tony that she would be sleeping, if it came to that, and found it to be terribly uncomfortable.   _Maybe the view is what makes it so expensive._

Her phone buzzes on the counter, once, twice, a third time, and Pepper finally gives in and moves towards it, wishing that she could just close the room up and hide in here forever, leaving Tony to do whatever Tony does.

**Pep.**

**Come outside.**

**Hot guy at three o'clock, just your type.**   ****

She stares down at her phone for a moment, wondering how this could have become her life, and another text comes in, rapid fire, which means that this is less about him wanting her to have fun and more the fact that Tony needs something familiar to tether him down.  She's gotten used to being the life raft that he uses when all the new sights and sounds and people threaten to sweep him away.

**If you don't come down, I'll just give him your number myself and won't that be awkward.**

**Please, Pepper.**

It's the please that does it, and even though she had a million things that she should be doing, Pepper just grabs her towel and throws her hair up in a bun.  She was promised afternoons by the pool, after all.

 

 

 

"Tony."  She was in his arms, and they were steadily moving towards the pool in short, waddling foot steps.  Pepper can see a bunch of camera phones pointing towards them, and hear people laughing, but its alright, because she knows these people around her ( _it's amazing, really, how quickly people can bond at conferences like these_ , _it's like class reunions or something_ ) and she is laughing, too, so hard that she can barely get the words out.  "Tony, do not!"

"I told you."  She can hear the smile in his voice even if he cannot see it, and all the protests were dying in her throat, because her phone was left abandoned on the table and she was already soaked, what with him dripping water all over her during this bear hug, and she had her swim suit on underneath the sun dress, anyways.  "You could do this the easy way, or the hard way, and look where we are."

He was going to throw her in the pool.  She had known that from the moment Pepper had caught him and the people in the pool watching her, and the suspicion got stronger when she watched him lift himself out of the pool, walking over to where she was sitting with two physics professors.  He had stood there for a moment, and then he was grabbing her by the arm and dragging her to her feet, pulling her forward and towards the pool, ignoring her squeals and screams and threats, because he knew that she did not really mean it.

"Too late!"  And then she was airborne, splashing down into the cold water before she even had the presence of mind to close her mouth, and she came up choking and spluttering, her hair plastered around her face, glaring up at him, but before she could really start to yell, he had jumped in after her.

"See?"  He surfaced up beside her, like nothing had happened, like it was every day that his assistant decides to go swimming in her clothes.  "I promised you'd get to have fun this week."

Fun, Pepper had learned, was a rather subjective term.

 

 

 

"Hey."  Her voice made Tony jump, the pillow he was holding slipping out of his hands and onto the floor.  He hastened to pick it up, staring determinedly out the window instead of looking at her.  "Thank you for bringing me."  She climbed up on the bed and crawled over to him.  "I had fun today."

"Did you?"  He was shy here, back in the room, like he thought that he was encroaching on her space.  "I'm glad."

And she had.  Pepper sometimes forgets how  _easy_ it is to be around Tony, but it was, even when he makes things difficult, because you cannot help but get caught up in the current of the way he walks through life, like everything about him is glowing and he has enough light to make the people around him shine, too.  He had taken her from the pool to the hotel café where he had ordered the two of them omelets in perfect Italian, then sat and watch the traffic on the street go by, a steady stream of people for them to watch and not a one of them seeming to care that the great Tony Stark was sitting only feet away from them.

He had taken her on a motor cycle ride around the city, too, the wind whipping at her hair as she clung to Tony's waist, and they wound through all the different shops for a while ( _he had bought her a stupid touristy shirt and a pair of designer sunglasses, and she had got him a set of shot glasses covered with Italy's landmarks_ ), until they finally stopped for dinner to share a pizza, which never mind the fact that Italy invented it, was not as good as the pizza back in America.

She told Tony that on the walk back to the hotel (the bike had been returned two hours earlier), and he laughed.  She could feel the sound vibrate in his chest, because the street was crowded and he had wrapped his arm around her so there was no way for the two of them to lose each other, a real concern after the fiasco in Germany three months ago.

"Yeah, I know."  His face was crinkled up in a smile.  "We do it better.  But isn't that one everyone's bucket list, to have a real Italian pizza?"

Pepper had wondered if that was the reason he brought her along, to make sure that she had been able to eat some real Italian pizza.  She wouldn't put it past him.

That, though, had all happened outside the hotel room, and now that Tony was caged in with no where to hide, catching sight of Pepper every time he turned around.  He had been alright for the first hour, when they were still talking about what they had done that day and what he would have to do tomorrow ( _she was planning to do nothing at all, thank you very much_ ), but then the conversation had fizzled out and he had seemed to not been able to figure out what to do with his hands, like everywhere he looked or sat or touched was not his to handle, and now as the night drew closer, he was becoming increasingly more quiet.

"It's getting late."  She was not sure how to go about this.  If she was being honest, Pepper had not expected to have to deal with the issue at all.  She had been quite confident that he was going to latch onto the first model he saw and not come back until morning.  "I think I'm going to go to bed."

"Oh.  Right."  He stands up, still holding that pillow, and moves towards the couch.  "Me too."

She stares at him, thinking that this was the earliest that he had gone to bed in years.  "Tony."  She pushed herself back onto her feet, watching as he dragged a blanket over himself, fiddling with his phone.  "You don't have to."

He had a bad back, is what she was thinking, but he just waved her away with something close to a smile, an unreadable look in his eyes.  "Don't worry about it."  He made a show of stretching out and getting comfortable.  "What kind of a man would I be if I didn't take the couch?"

 _What a gentleman,_ she thinks dryly, and heads into the shower instead of answering, hoping that he would be asleep by the time she comes back out.

 

 

It's two in the morning, and she still isn't asleep. 

Pepper's always found it hard to sleep in new places, an occupational hazard for someone who travels as often as she does, and it's doubly hard for her tonight, when the silence between them just seems to amplify the sounds that Tony is making- the subtle clicking of his laptop mouse, the rustle of sheets, even his breathing- and even though he is trying to make it so she can pretend that he is not there, it makes his presence more noticeable than if he had been walking in and out of the room.

 _Don't do it,_ she kept telling herself,  _it's a bad idea,_ and yet the rules have seemed to change here, so she speaks anyways.  "Tony?"

"Yeah, Pepper?"  He whispers back.  He's not normally a whisper type of person.

"Are you awake?"

Tony huffs out a laugh.  "Obviously."

"You know what I meant."  Her words have a little bit of edge to them, because he did know, he always knows what she is trying to say even when the words are not coming.  "I can't sleep."

The confession hangs in the air, and she is half expecting him to shrug and ask what the hell she thinks he's supposed to do about it, but then she hears the couch creak and knows he is pushing himself up so he could look at her.  "Me either."  There's another creaking sound as he tries to sit up, but he just gets twisted up in the blanket that had gotten shoved down around his ankles.  "This couch  _sucks._ "

"Then sleep in the bed."  She had made bad decisions before, but this was not one of them.  This was a selfish decision, like when you're on a diet and eat that second piece of chocolate anyways.

(Pepper's idea of a diet has a very loose description, mostly involving her eating whatever she wants and then telling whoever was beside her that it was her cheat day.)

"I already told you,"  He says, "I am the guy, therefore"

"I meant with me."  She was sitting up now, back against the headboard, knees pulled up to her chest.  In the mirror across from her, Pepper's reflection looked younger than she had seen it in ages.  "Together."

"Sharing a bed?"

He still wasn't moving.

"It won't kill you, Tony."   _And it's not like we haven't done it before,_ she wants to add, but those had been special circumstances, normally brought upon by some sort of accident or injury that requires one of them to keep watch over the other, so it just made sense, then, for the two of them to share a bed instead of one sitting up on a chair or lying on the floor.  This was different.  That was out of necessity.  This was just because Pepper wanted to.

Pepper had arguments, but it turned out that she didn't need him, because he just powered down his laptop and came to stand on the other side of the bed from her, fingers resting on the edge of the sheets.  "You sure?"  He was always so insistent when it comes to her and her choices, trying to make sure that she wasn't doing anything that she did not want to do.  "The couch isn't that bad."

"I'm sure, Tony."  She laid back down and hugged the pillow close to her chest, back turned to him, so she hears rather than sees him climb into bed and lean carefully back against the pillows.  "You're not going to scare me away now."

 

 

 

She sleeps, but not enough.  Pepper tries hard not to disturb him, and she's pretty sure that Tony is doing the same thing, so neither of them are moving and neither of them are comfortable.  The third time she wakes up, she finds Tony sitting up beside her and staring down at his phone, typing away at something that she hopes is a response to a company e-mail but probably isn't.

Pepper rolls onto her back and stares up at him for a moment before he notices her.  "Hey."  He lets the phone drop on the bedside table and then immediately regrets it, because he no longer has anything to keep his hands busy.  "I wake you?"

"No." He looks tired, but not any worse than normal.  Pepper wonders if this is how he spends his night- from phone to laptop to tablet to tv, from project to project, room to room.  If so, the drinking makes a little bit more sense.  "Have you been to sleep yet?"   _Big day tomorrow,_ she thinks of adding, but that would force her back into the role of assistant Pepper, and that is not who she wants to be right now.

Tony smiles and rests his hand on her shoulder, his thumb moving in circles over the line of freckles that she had showed him once, when she was explaining how much she hated her shoulders.  ( _So many freckles, all because of one weekend she didn't wear sunscreen.  So.  Many._ )  "Maybe you haven't noticed,"  He says, his hand still there, thumb still moving.  "But I don't sleep much."

"You should."

"I can't."

"Maybe if you tried."

"You think I haven't been?"

"Not enough."  Pepper stares at him for a moment and realizes exactly how close they are, how their arms are only inches apart and their legs are brushing up against each other, that even this bed is too small for two people.  "Here."

She shoves at him, and he falls into place, more out of surprise and a general tendency to follow her orders without question than actual agreeance.  He flops down on the bed and just keep smiling, a little bemused, right up until the moment where Pepper curls up around him, using his chest as a pillow.

"Pep?"  She doesn't answer.  "Pepper."

"It's okay, Tony."  His arm comes up around her, tentatively, and Pepper lets herself be held by him, sinking into him until she can feel the tension in his body ebb away, until she can hear his breathing even out.  It was better this way, instead of the two of them trying to pretend that the other is not here.  And when he reaches out for his phone again, Pepper grabs at his hand and forces it down to his side and does not let go, just lets their fingers tangle even when they are both on the verge of falling asleep.  "Just sleep."

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


End file.
